All Your Desert Songs
by sinemoras09
Summary: No longer a jinchuuriki, Gaara struggles to retain his abilities. Gen. Gaara, Temari, Kankuro. Collection of oneshots. No spoilers.
1. Jinchuuriki

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.

_The fan glinted, the metal flashing as it arced across the sky._

_Gaara ducked and dodged the gale force winds; Temari leaned back. Another blast: kunai came shooting out from behind her. The sand pushed up and up and up, but an errant kunai managed to pass through; it slammed into Gaara's arm._

_"Gaara!" Temari dropped her fan and rushed toward him. Gaara winced. There was a rip in his sleeve; blood trickled down the side of his arm._

_"You're hurt," Temari said._

_"It's nothing," Gaara said._

_"But Gaara-"_

_"I'm still not fast enough."_

_Gaara stood, wincing. Temari was stricken. "Gaara, you can't keep pushing yourself like this," Temari said. "You're still healing-"_

_"Again," Gaara said. He hiked up his gourd and resumed position._

_Temari frowned. Reluctantly, she opened her fan._

xXx  
.

For the first twenty days after being brought back to life, Gaara had a headache he couldn't shake.

It was a strange lightheadedness, as if his head had been scooped out of its insides and everything else had been replaced by cotton.

xXx  
.

There were other things too, other things that made him feel a little off. His chakra was uneven. A little bit of Chiyo-baba, a little bit of Naruto-kun, it swirled and crashed like a tempest at his core, and it gave Gaara a nauseating sense of vertigo. It wasn't until Temari found him throwing up into one of his potted cacti that he finally admitted something was wrong. "You're pushing yourself too hard," Temari said. "Gaara. It hasn't been more than a few weeks, your body is still trying to adjust. You can't keep going on like this."

"I'm fine," Gaara said.

"You're not fine! You just threw up all over that cactus!"

Gaara's eyes narrowed. Wordlessly he flicked his wrist, separating the emesis from the sand.

"Oh, that's good," Temari said, sarcastically. "Next time you puke your guts out, I'll just think to myself, 'hey, that's okay, Gaara can still clean up after himself!' Tch. And here I thought Kankuro was the moron."

"Is there something you want?" Gaara said.

"I _want_ you to start resting. I _want_ you to start feeling better."

Gaara glared.

"Fine. Don't listen to me. Stay up all night if you want," Temari said. "Just don't come crying to me when the guards find you passed out in the middle of the hallway."

"Goodnight, Temari," Gaara said.

"Idiot," Temari said.

Gaara pretended to ignore her when she slammed the door.

xXx  
.

Nighttime. The lights were off in the compound, and the only light in the hallway was from the occasional torch that flickered above him. With effort, Gaara climbed the steps to his room and opened the door, shrugging off his gourd and leaning it against the wall.

Gaara tried lying down, but the sheets felt strange and the bed felt strange, and everything about it just felt _wrong_.

Gaara sat up and pushed the bedsheets away, suddenly feeling suffocated by them. Quietly, he opened the balcony doors and stepped outside, standing in the cool night air. Gaara didn't mind not sleeping; what he minded was the overwhelming sense of exhaustion that came with it. The _shukaku_ may have kept him awake all these years, but never once did he feel so tired.

He woke up curled up against the railing of the balcony, late for his morning meetings and his face pressed up against one of the metal bars.

xXx  
.

Gaara was poised at his desk, in the middle of a correspondence with the Hokage, when he accidentally gave himself a papercut. He jerked his hand away, stunned by the suddenness of the pain and the unexpected tinge of red at his fingertip, when he realized, _I've never gotten a papercut before._ He stared at his hand, rubbing the blood between his thumb and his index finger, fearful of what the implications would be.

Setting his pen down, he leaned over and opened the desk drawer where he kept a small parring knife hidden underneath the piles of paperclips and rubber bands. He flicked the blade open, then cut into his hand.

Gaara dropped the knife. He was bleeding. He cut himself and he was _bleeding_.

His heart was thudding in his chest when he lurched toward Temari's door.

xXx  
.

That night, he overheard his siblings talking.

"I've never seen him so weak before," Temari said. "I understand that he's still recovering, but still..."

A pause. Gaara stood by the doorway, listening intently.

"His chakra has weakened," Temari said, softly. "Ever since the _shukaku_ was ripped out of him, even his shield of sand doesn't work anymore."

There was a pause before Kankuro spoke. "That bad, huh?"

"You wouldn't believe how much chakra he uses up just trying to defend himself," Temari said. "It was something he took for granted-that the sand would always protect him. And now..."

Her voice dropped. "I'm not even going full force at him, yet. His other abilities right now are negligible. He can still control the sand, of _course_ he can still control the sand, but his stamina isn't what it was, and at this rate, he's more likely to pass out than defeat an enemy in combat. He's barely genin-level," Temari said. "I don't know what to do."

There it was, that feeling again. Something like shame and indignation gnawing at his chest.

No one noticed when Gaara quietly shut the door.

xXx  
.

There was a fresh bandage around Gaara's hand when one of his subordinates knocked on his door. "Kazekage-sama," the captain said. "The council wishes to see you. It's about..." and he hesitated, clearly unsure of where to go. "It's about your ability to serve us as Kage," he said. A little bead of sweat formed at his forehead.

Gaara's face was a perfect mask. "When?"

"Tomorrow afternoon." The captain fiddled with his hands. Gaara turned his back toward him, turning his pen over in his hands. The captain still didn't leave. "Sir?"

Gaara glanced back. The captain cleared his throat, nervously. "Kazekage-sama," the captain said. "I just wanted to say...everything you've done for us..."

"It's fine," Gaara said. "You may return to your post."

"Y-yes, sir." The captain started to leave, then turned. "I hope you're feeling well, Kazekage-sama," he said, and he skittered away.

Gaara sat back and stared at the bandage around his hand.

xXx  
.

There was a reason why Gaara didn't sleep: sleep meant physical vulnerability, and every time he closed his eyes he'd jolt upright, half expecting to be suspended in mid-air with his guts being ripped outside of him.

Gaara hated having to close his eyes.

xXx  
.

Gaara was standing at the balcony again when Temari came. The night was quiet and there was a slight breeze outside. "It's beautiful tonight," Temari said. "Even when I was a child, I always found the nights to be soothing. I can only imagine how you felt about it. I think you liked the nights more than I did."

The wind stirred. Slowly, Temari pulled out a kunai and turned it over in her hands.

"Gaara," Temari said. "You still haven't fully recovered. You were rescued just days ago, you're expecting too much of yourself. You're not a jinchuuriki anymore. It'll take longer to heal."

"I know."

Silence. Then.

"I started training again." Gaara kept his eyes trained on the horizon, sand swirling like dervishes around his feet. "Baki-sensei thought it best I start working on my taijutsu, if for no other reason than I am a Kage and I ought to be more well-rounded. We both know the truth, however."

Gaara watched, his face a careful mask, as his sister gripped the railings to the balcony, tight.

"You can barely stand up, and yet you're out there training? Tch." Temari rolled eyes. "Arrogant. That's what it is. Arrogant and fucking idiotic, instead of resting, you're out here whining because you can cut yourself. Idiot. And you call yourself the Kazekage." Temari turned. "Our Kazekage would never sit there and feel sorry for himself. Our Kazekage wouldn't have the luxury. Tch. I'm going to bed."

Temari turned and stalked out of the room. Gaara raised his eyes.

"They called a special council tomorrow," Gaara said. Temari stopped. "It's about my ability to serve as Kazekage."

Temari stared. "What?"

"The council is worried about my progress," Gaara said. "If they come to question my abilities, I just wanted you to know...I'm nominating you to be the next Kazekage."

Temari stared. "You can't be serious," she said.

"My abilities have weakened," Gaara said, evenly. "It's not about pride, it's about what best serves our village. And if that means I should step down-"

"I can't believe I'm hearing this," Temari said.

"We both know Kankuro doesn't have the head for these kinds of things," Gaara said.

Temari stared, and Gaara noticed the artery in her temple begin to throb.

The sand, like the rest of him, couldn't keep up when Temari smacked him squarely in the jaw.

Gaara stepped back, his cheek stinging. He stared up at Temari with wounded eyes. "Temari..."

"Stupid!" Temari said. "Fucking _idiot_!"

She smacked Gaara again, this time punching him in the arm. "Defend yourself!" Temari said.

"Temari..."

"Do it!" Temari said, and her kunai flashed in the darkened sky.

Gaara didn't even blink when the sand wrapped around his sister, blocking the kunai from stabbing through Temari's throat.

They breathed heavily, the sand dropping and the kunai falling to the ground.

"You were going to stab yourself," Gaara said.

Temari's eyes flashed. A slow grin spread across her cheeks.

"Temari!" Gaara said. "What if I wasn't able to stop you?"

"Then I guess I would have been in deep shit, wouldn't I?" Temari said. Gaara stared at his sister, horrified. "Gaara," Temari said. "Your abilities will come back in time. Look at what happened just now-you reacted without even thinking. And it was as if your abilities had never weakened at all."

"Temari." The color drained completely from Gaara's face.

"Have a little more faith, little brother," Temari said, and she tapped the blunt end of her kunai against the metal plate around her neck. "You didn't think I was _that_ idiotic, did you?"

Gaara watched, dumbstruck, as Temari turned on her heels and walked away.

* * *

**A/N: Even though in the manga Gaara clearly never lost his badass sand powers, I like to think it's not automatic anymore like it was back when he was a jinchuuriki. I like to think he had to go through a long rehabilitation to retain his badass status :) Anyway...yeah. We'll see where this goes.**


	2. Library

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.

Outside the attic, Gaara unlocked the door but didn't turn on the lights, taking the staircase to the upper floor where the old antiques were stored. There was a wedge of light cutting through the darkness, and he could see the fine granulations of dust floating in the air. Temari coughed and waved her hand, irritated.

"I told you we should have cleaned this place out earlier," Temari said. "God knows what kind of shit father kept up in here." She coughed again. "Are you really planning on using this place as an office?"

"No, just a library," Gaara said, and he swirled the dust in his hand. Temari glared.

"Show off," Temari said.

Through the tiny window, a patch of orange light streaked across the piles of boxes and broken puppets across from them. Gaara turned and slowly walked over to the other side of the room. Wordlessly he touched each unopened box, tracing them with the tips of his fingers. There was so much history here, so much of his past quite literally buried inside. He couldn't shake the feeling that this was not so much a cleaning effort as it was disinterring the remains of some unknown body, shaking its bones and desecrating its grave. Beside him, Temari squatted on the floor and began tearing into a box. She kept digging, wholly absorbed in her task. "I don't know what it is you're looking for, but if you ask me, this whole _place_ should be thrown in the garbage," Temari said. Gaara didn't answer.

Gaara knelt beside Temari, and wordlessly opened a box. Inside he found a series of dusty picture frames. In was a picture of his mother; another was a picture of Temari and Kankuro. Gaara set the pictures down, carefully avoiding the ones of Yashamaru and his father, frowning and turning them over in his hands.

"Gaara, look what I found," Temari said. Gaara turned and saw her holding up a battered teddy bear by its paw. "Remember this?"

Gaara remembered. It was the bear Yashamaru gave him when he was a child. Temari picked up the bear by the corner of its ear and sniffed. "Guh," she said. "It stinks." She started to toss it out.

"Wait," Gaara said. "Give it to me." Temari knitted her brow.

"Why?" Temari said.

"Yashamaru gave it to me."

Temari looked at him darkly. "In that case, you should burn it," she said, and she tossed it to him.

Gaara caught the bear and set it on his lap. The bear was definitely worse for wear; one of its button eyes was starting to fall out, and the stitches in the seams were coming loose. Its fur had all but rubbed off, and Gaara could see the thin bald spot in the fabric where he used to hug it as a child.

For some inexplicable reason, looking at it made him feel lonely.

"Gaara." Temari was watching him now, concerned. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," Gaara said. He looked at the bear again, his fingers sinking into its fur. "I think I'll keep this," Gaara said. He took the bear and gently tucked it under his arm.

Temari watched him, doubtfully. "You _do_ realize you're the Kazekage now, right?" she asked.

"What about it?"

"Any self-respecting man wouldn't be caught sleeping with a toy. Least of all the Kazekage," Temari said.

"I guess it's a good thing I don't sleep," Gaara said.

Gaara reached into the box of picture frames again, pulling out the picture of Temari and Kankuro. Temari peered over his shoulder and frowned.

"Don't look at that," she said, and she took the frame away from him.

Temari moved to another box. She opened it, coughing at the dust billowing around her face. There were manila envelopes inside. She tore into them. "Oh my God," Temari said. Gaara peered over her shoulder.

They were surveillance reports all about Gaara. Temari fumbled through the folders, her hands shaking. "Look," Temari said.

There were surveillance photographs of Gaara as a child, sitting alone in the sand; the photos were grainy black and white, unlike the ones of Temari and Kankuro, which were portraits done in color. Temari flipped through them, quickly.

There was a picture of Gaara, four years old, hugging his knees and watching the other children on the playground.

Gaara, clinging to Yashamaru's leg.

Gaara crying in the courtyard.

Gaara, after the assassination attempt. His eyes looked dead inside.

Temari shoved them back into the envelope.

"Temari," Gaara said.

"I don't want to look at these," Temari said.

"Temari, it's okay," Gaara said.

"No, it's _not_ okay!" Temari said, and Gaara was surprised to see tears in her eyes. Temari swiped them away, angrily. "I'm your older sister," Temari said. "I should have protected you. I should have..."

"Temari," Gaara said, and Temari started to cry.

"Fuck," Temari said. She wiped her eyes again. "Our Kage sleeps with teddy bears and his sister's a fucking lunatic. I can't believe Kankuro's the only one who isn't all fucked up."

"Kankuro isn't here," Gaara said. He wasn't sure what to do.

Gaara sat on his hands, waiting for Temari to calm down. She wasn't though, her shoulders were shaking. Hesitantly, Gaara reached out and patted his sister clumsily on the shoulder. "We were both children," Gaara said. "You couldn't have known."

"Children are fucking cruel," Temari said.

They closed the boxes in silence, the sunlight starting to disappear behind the horizon. Gaara watched as Temari squared her shoulders and hefted the boxes above her head, shoving them against the wall. He wanted to ask her if she was okay, wanted to tell her there was no reason to feel guilty. But the words wouldn't come; they were stuck in his throat. "Temari," he said, but she didn't answer.

That night, Gaara sat on the roof of the compound; his sister was asleep. Below him, he could see Kankuro ambling back from his mission, Baki and the others straggling behind him. Slowly he tucked the bear back under his arm and stood; their Kage was still left behind.


End file.
